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Four Dutch Men Detained for Allegedly Employing Malware to Rob Bank Accounts

Finextra.com reported on 30th October, 2013 stating that Dutch Police have detained four men indicted of employing malware to embezzle approximately EUR 1 Million from online bank accounts and then use bitcoin to launder the money.

The cybercriminals were detained last week (last week of October 2013), charged of employing spear-phishing tactics to install malicious software on the computers of victims. The malware known as TorRAT particularly aims online banking and employs the Tor network to shield crook's secrecy. The cybercriminals gang also employed free of charge 'TorMail' service to conceal their attacks.

The four supposedly carried out over 150 fake transactions from the bank accounts of Internauts and transferred up to EUR 1 Million to money-mules since last spring.

The group is charged of rotating to bitcoin to get their hands on the cash and set-up their own personal exchange for the virtual money.

Bitcoins worth Euro 7,700 ($10,600) have been seized and the virtual currency was employed not just to launder the profits of their offenses but also for payment to associates of the conspiracy.

The cybercriminals caused a total damage of approximately Euro 1 million ($1.38 million).

Researchers of IT security firm Trend Micro have been observing the actions of this cybercriminal gang and as per the experts, the criminals used Tor concealed web sites for C&C or (command and control) servers.

In fact it was apparent right from the beginning of Trend Micro's investigation that the cybercriminals were native Dutch speakers. The cybercriminals employed an Armenian crypting service, well-known as SamArt to guard their malware in opposition to security softwares.

Coindesk.com published a report on 30th October, 2013 quoting a blog of Feike Hacquebord, Senior Threat Researcher of Trend Micro as that trading a service from a crypting service employing tormail.org and hiring and misusing money-mules put cyber crooks at danger of getting trapped. A single mistake can guide to the unscrambling of whole operation of cybercrime."

Moreover, sometime the Internet criminals has to emerge from behind the Tor curtain to put stolen properties to real use which means that the cyber crooks hiding at the back of Tor are not unnoticeable per se. This was proved by the latest arrest of the mastermind of Silk Road, a secretive market for banned drugs.